


Accidental Surrealism and Advanced Rescue Techniques

by onemechanicalalligator



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Dreamatorium, Experimental Style, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Neither relationship is explicit, Rescue, So you can read it however you choose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26377867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onemechanicalalligator/pseuds/onemechanicalalligator
Summary: The same old story: Troy leaves, and Abed suffers. This time, Abed loses touch with reality.
Relationships: Abed Nadir/Jeff Winger, Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 13
Kudos: 92





	Accidental Surrealism and Advanced Rescue Techniques

Abed's mouth is glued shut. 

Or maybe it isn't actual glue holding it closed, maybe it's spicy-smelling tree sap, _amber, maple_ , or slowly hardening wax, _candle, crayon_ , or cold honey, _clover, mesquite,_ that fills his mouth and then crystallizes, hard and fast and sweet. 

Or maybe it isn't even adhesive in his mouth at all, maybe there is something else preventing him from speaking. Maybe his tongue has been pinned to the roof of his mouth, like a dead butterfly to a shadow box _,_ or one piece of fabric to another, or a hat to a few locks of hair.

Maybe he is just altered now, changed, like maybe Troy was the only one who could understand Abed anyway, and when he left he took Abed's voice with him. 

_Rhymes with choice._

Troy made a choice. Abed didn't. 

It doesn't really matter, in any case, because where Abed is now, he doesn't need a voice. 

_Where we’re going, we don’t need roads,_ Doc’s voice echoes in his head, incongruous with the rest of his surroundings, his experience, the vibe he is trying to cultivate. He was hoping for more of a Garden of Eden thing, and _Back to the Future_ doesn’t seem quite right. He shakes his head.

He's not sure exactly where he is, to be honest, and he's not sure how long he's been here, _hours, days, weeks, maybe._ But he knows he hasn't once felt the need to speak, to make himself heard or understood. He has no need for human interaction, not here, and it’s nice to exist without the constant awareness of being _other,_ of being _different._ It’s not that it bothers him so much as it’s exhausting. Abed is tired right now, he’s _so very, very_ tired. 

He tries again to get his bearings.

There _is_ the fact that he's trapped, that’s something he’s sure of, and maybe someone could help him with that, but he hasn't seen anyone. He hasn't looked. Doesn’t want to.

He thinks he might be caught in a spiderweb, sticky silk holding him fast by the wrists and ankles, cradled in a delicate hammock woven from tough, thin threads. He hasn't seen a spider, not yet. He wonders if he's a prisoner, or prey, or if this is just his home now. 

It’s a comfortable hammock, and he can relax here. If there were a breeze, he would feel it on all sides. As it is, he feels stifled and a little hot, but he tries to ignore that. Tries to imagine a breeze into existence, to feel it lick his skin and wake him up, make him new and whole. He can’t imagine it into existence. He can’t imagine it at all. He imagines, instead, that he’s suffocating. And then he stops trying to imagine anything at all.

He jumps back to the thought of being new and whole, and it gives him pause, because he forgot he wasn’t whole, and he can’t quite remember why he isn’t, what caused this. He tries to remember if he’s broken, but there’s something in him that shoves the thought away, slaps at it like a mosquito, and it’s more comfortable to just ignore it, so that’s what he does.

He can see with his eyes shut, and that's new.

It's also lovely, because wherever he is, it's _beautiful._ The colors are soft and don't hurt his eyes, nothing is too bright or glaring. He hasn't really tried to open his eyes, but he thinks they might be stuck shut, like his mouth. Sewn, maybe, so his eyelashes form a seam. 

_Rhymes with dream._

Abed starts to think about dreams, about desire and delusion and past and future, about want and need. He starts to think about giving up and letting go, then changes directions and thinks back to dreams, about _mr. sandman_ and _daydream believer_ and _all I have to do is dream,_ and he thinks he might drift off to sleep, swaddled in this cocoon, and that’s not quite right, is it? But a cocoon is tight and safe and Abed likes that, likes being held on all sides, feeling cradled and held. He watches the spiderweb morph into a cocoon in front of his closed eyes and relaxes further into it.

Suddenly there's a muffled sound coming from somewhere far away. It’s the first abrupt change in anything that he’s noticed since he’s been here. He thinks it might be music of some kind, someone singing, _maybe._ There's percussion accompanying it, a drum, _maybe._ He thinks for a second that he hears his name, _maybe._ He ignores it. He can't move, and wouldn't if he could. He knows he is safe here. 

His mind drifts and he thinks of friendship and promises and secrets and inheritances, and then he does a quick about face and lets random images flood his mind, _flowers pressed in books, and a baby goat, and soda made with too much syrup._ _Old VHS tapes and broken deep fryers and a wooden tree house._ The images flash across his brain in black and white and sepia like it’s his very own _Ken Burns_ documentary, and he doesn’t even understand the topic.

The music gets louder, harder to ignore, so Abed pulls himself out of the cocoon and makes up his own music. He looks around at the world behind his eyelids and finds a patch of flowers, _blooming, blooming, blooming,_ and when he picks the flowers they scream, but it's a _beautiful_ scream, a _musical_ scream. He picks a sonata, and then a folk tune, and then a lullaby, and then he is standing in a pile of dead flowers, and he starts to cry. 

He stops almost as soon as he starts. Crying hurts. 

He focuses instead on what other things he can feel, physically, tangibly. He moves his hands, taps his fingers together, _one, two, three, four, five._ They’re damp and stiff, probably from being caught in the web for so long. He tries to move his body but it aches, so he stops. He waits a minute, then tries again, gentler this time. He feels like he’s free and fluttery, floating in the wind. He feels like a whisper, a dream. He holds a hand out in front of his eyelids and it shimmers, and he thinks maybe he can see through it a little. He wonders if he’s disappearing. The thought doesn’t really disturb or upset him. 

Abed thinks he hears his name again, and he doesn’t like it, it makes his skin feel hot and sizzling, his stomach constrict, his heart crumble into a pile of ash. He stuffs his ears full of flowers and then jams his palms against them to keep the petals in, trying to make it stop. The sound is dim, but persistent.

_Rhymes with insistent._

He can still make out bits and pieces, soft and far away

_do something / unlock it / don’t know / where’s the key / sure he’s in there? / break down the door / careful_

He can’t quite put it all together, can’t quite make out the general plot. He has the outline, but he’s missing most of the inside pieces of the puzzle. He writes it off as a litany of nonsense, a distraction, maybe. He lets the petals fall out of his ears and he picks them up and tosses them, one by one, _he loves me, he loves me not,_ and then he drops them all at once like they’re on fire, like he’s opened a box he can’t close again, like he’s triggered the booby trap and now his time is limited. He wonders if he should run. 

He runs.

He stumbles into a thicket and there are vines crawling all over the ground. They slither around his ankles, climb up over his knees and wrap around his thighs, rendering him immobile. They squeeze, tightly enough to cut into his skin. He reaches for a tree trunk to keep himself upright but he can’t reach any so he topples over, the vines now creeping around his hips and up to his waist.

_Rhymes with chaste._

That’s significant somehow, it points to unfinished business, but he can’t quite connect what that might be. 

He wriggles and squirms, tries to get free of the vines but they’re still crawling over him, wrapping around his chest and his arms now, and he wonders what will happen when they get to his throat. He forces his mouth open, and he doesn’t know if it’s the tearing of adhesive or the pins flying all about, but it _hurts,_ it burns and scratches, even down in his throat, like he’s been swallowing razor blades.

He tries to scream, but all he can do is mumble, and all he can mumble is _no,_ so he just chants it over and over from his spot on the floor, twisted at odd angles, continuing to be consumed by vines. He tries to say _no_ as many times as he can before they begin to choke him.

_no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no_

There’s a _loud_ banging sound, like the percussion he heard earlier but more abrupt, and closer, and more urgent. It hurts Abed’s head, rattles it, and he cringes. It continues until there’s a sound of wood breaking, and then Abed is hit with a rush of cool air, and it’s _too much_ at once, it’s _too many_ things happening, and he lets himself succumb to the vines.

* * *

Jeff is the one who breaks down the door to the Dreamatorium, the one Troy helped Abed reconstruct in his old bedroom before leaving on his trip. 

Troy has been gone for almost two days, and as far as any of them can tell, Abed has been in there that whole time. 

At first it just seems like quirky Abed, and then it just seems like maybe Abed needs to grieve, but now it’s getting scary, and that’s what makes Annie suggest breaking the door down when no one can find a key, and Jeff is the one who finally does it.

Abed _never_ locks the door to the Dreamatorium when he’s inside it.

They all step inside and the first thing they notice is it is _hot._ The windows are blocked, so there’s no airflow coming in or out, and the walls are painted dark, absorbing all the heat. 

Shirley goes straight over to Abed, who is sprawled on the floor in a strange position, tangled in a blanket. She runs a hand through his hair, and Britta comes up and crouches behind her.

“Get some water,” Shirley whispers to Britta, who nods and looks grateful to have a task. Even from where Jeff is standing, he can see that Abed’s lips are dry and cracked.

Abed _always_ puts chapstick on his lips, almost to the point of compulsion.

Annie sits down next to Abed and pulls a tube of carmex out of her own pocket. Carefully, she applies it to Abed’s lips with her finger. Then she puts the tube back in her pocket and takes his hand in hers, squeezing it gently. She starts to speak softly to Abed, and Jeff can’t understand what she’s saying.

Jeff doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do, so he waits.

* * *

Abed doesn’t move for a long time, not when the vines get dangerously close to his throat and not when they suddenly pull away. Not when there’s a burst of cool air and bright light behind his eyelids. Not when he thinks he hears his friends’ voices, and not when he feels something touching his lips, which, he realizes, are on fire. Whatever is touching them is actually very soothing.

Then he realizes someone is holding a cup of water up to his mouth, and he doesn’t want to drink it but they’re already pouring, and he doesn’t want it. So he just kind of sputters and chokes on it, and that startles whoever is holding the water, because the next thing Abed knows it’s all over his face, and he supposes it does something to dissolve the stitches in his eyelids because suddenly his eyes are open.

Shirley and Britta are staring down at him as he blinks, trying to get his eyes to focus, and the light hurts them. It was dark when this started. He remembers that much. He hears a squeal next to him and then Annie is there, too, and it’s _too many faces,_ it’s _too much,_ so he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to burrow back into the mess of vines, only there aren’t any vines, just an old comforter, so he burrows into that instead.

He’s disoriented, and still not totally sure where he is or what’s happening. He doesn’t want to remember any of it, if he’s honest, he’d rather just go back to hiding, whether it’s in a patch of vines or a spiderweb or a screaming garden. 

He makes the mistake of glancing up at the ceiling, and that’s when things come crashing unwelcome back into his memory, because the ceiling makes him realize he’s in the Dreamatorium. 

Abed starts to thrash, desperate to get away from Shirley and Annie and Britta, to get away from everything. He doesn’t know what his plan is, if he wants to leave the Dreamatorium, or where he would go. He just knows he can’t be _here,_ not right now. He hears the girls making noises, and he tries to fling himself away, to crawl if he has to, but he’s caught in the blanket, which makes it difficult. 

Eventually he sheds the blanket and pulls himself toward the door, but when he gets there he realizes he doesn’t want to go through it, so he pushes himself into the corner and tries to make himself as small as possible. He puts his head to his knees and then wraps his arms around his ears in hopes that his friends will just _leave, leave him alone, leave him here to rot._

They don’t, of course, but after some time, when Abed opens his eyes and peeks out from behind his knees, everyone is gone except for Jeff. And Jeff isn’t trying to talk to him or touch him or make him do anything, Jeff is just sitting against another wall, waiting. There’s a new, full glass of water next to him on the floor.

Abed reaches for the glass, and Jeff picks it up and hands it to him. It hurts when he sips it, his throat feels like sandpaper. But he drinks the whole glass anyway, and then curls back into himself, and the next time he moves it’s because Jeff has come to his side, is sitting next to him, has wrapped an arm around Abed’s back. It’s like the opposite of the vines; it feels warm and safe and _real_ , and Abed leans in to it.

“Where were you?” Jeff murmurs. “What were you simulating?”

“Don’t know,” Abed says after a long pause, and the words feel strange in his mouth. “Don’t remember what the simulation was. None of it made sense.”

Jeff is quiet for a little while.

“You can’t stay here forever,” he finally says in the same soft voice.

Abed shrugs.

“I didn’t mean to get lost,” he whispers. “But then I didn’t want to be found.” He bumps his head softly against Jeff's shoulder. “You broke the door down. You found me anyway.”

“I’ll always find you,” Jeff says, and then shuts his mouth quickly, as though he spoke without meaning to.

“Why?”

“Because you’re important, Abed.” 

_Because I know you, Abed. Because I care about you, Abed._ Jeff doesn’t have to say these things aloud. Abed already knows.

“I’m nothing without him,” Abed says under his breath, mostly to gauge how Jeff will react, but it was a bad idea. His heart hurts, thinking about him, _it hurts, it hurts, it hurts._

“You two make a good team,” Jeff says honestly, and Abed thinks he carries no resentment. “But you’re each a whole person, too. You matter.”

“I don’t know how to be a whole person,” Abed says, pushing his hands into his hair and shaking his head. “I don’t know if I’ve ever _been_ a whole person.”

“I can help you,” Jeff assures him. “If you’ll let me.”

“You would do that?” Abed asks warily.

“I’d do anything,” Jeff says, and closes his mouth too fast again. Abed is learning something about Jeff. He files it away for later.

“I see your value now,” Abed says, and finally looks Jeff in the eye.

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Jeff says, and smiles.


End file.
